


Sister

by sasageyowrites



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Advice, Alcohol, Character Death, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Conversations, Drinking & Talking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, No Romance, Platonic Relationships, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Siblings, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasageyowrites/pseuds/sasageyowrites
Summary: While everyone else is celebrating the scouts newest victory against the titans, you are mourning your sister who fell trying to defend humanity. Maybe Levi can help ease the pain.
Relationships: Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) & Reader, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Reader, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 78





	Sister

**Author's Note:**

> Uploaded from my tumblr sasageyowrites.

Warnings: mentions of death, swearing, grief, 

Please do not repost

The muffled chatter of the scouts celebrating in the mess hall could be heard from any part of the barracks. The golden candlelight filling the mess hall was warming and confronting to the men and women who laughed and conversed amongst each other, their hands gripping wooden beer mugs that were filled with frothy white liquid that would occasionally be spilt on the floor. Various platters of food layered the multiple wooden tables, and while the food itself was of poor quality, the soldiers didn’t seem to mind the stale bread or the slightly burnt vegetables.

The last mission had been a great success, the titans who had gotten too close to wall Maria had been slaughtered and the three walls were safe once again until the next wave of threats. While the battle had been great and casualties had greatly reduced personnel, the end result meant that the families behind the fifty meter wall that blocked out the demons could sleep soundly for another night. The children could play in the streets for another day, life could resume itself and the innocent civilians could continue to enjoy the serenity of peace without ever knowing the people who had died to allow their safety. The sacrifice of the fallen scouts would go unthought of by the people, their bodies that lay as the permanent reminders of the battle would lie in unmarked graves.

Your sister was amongst those who had not come home. Her body having been ripped in half by the teeth of a titan, her screams still howling and ringing in your head and even if you closed your eyes you couldn’t erase the image of her fear stricken face from your mind. You had failed to protect her, you had watched her get pulled from the air by that demon and all you could do was watch as she cried your name before she was swallowed by the titan. Your baby sister had been killed, and it was your fault.

Maybe that’s why you weren’t in the mood to celebrate with the rest of your squad. Instead you found comfort in sitting on a windowsill from higher up in the base, one leg bent up by your chest with one arm perched ontop if your knee, your own beer mug held tightly in your hand. Your other leg hung carelessly through the open window and left to casually swing back and forth gently over the stone bricks, your gaze transfixed in the mess hall meters below from the window where you were perched. You could see the candle light flickering through the gaps in the door, the courtyard illuminated and bathed in fiery light every time someone opened the door to the hall, you could hear their bubbling chatter and laughter that only made you feel worse.

Your leg ceasing it’s back and forth motion over the side of castle tower as you let your head fall lazily back onto the side of the window, your gaze staring up into the navy blue night sky. Stars speckled over the onyx canvas that blinked and twinkled rom their position the night sky, the moon like a silver penny slightly blurred out by small grey clouds that sifted the silver ribbons of moonlight. The night air was crisp and was the only thing that could soothe your burning cheeks thatvwere famo from crying, hot and salty tears long since fallen from your eyes and now being caressed by the tentative night air. Your shaky breaths falling from your lips and nostrils in small silver whisks that danced into the dark sky.

You needed to break away from the rest of the troops. You needed to steal yourself some time to properly mourn your loss. Your little sister had been the only person you had ever cared for, she made you laugh when no one else could, she made you fight for something other then yourself. A sob wracked your body as you could remember your first night in the scouts together, she had crawled into your bed for comfort. Her feet had been warm against yours like they had always been, you always had cold feet and hands but with your sister there you had never once felt it. But now as you say alone in the windowsill you could feel the burning from the air that nipped at your fingers, she wasn’t here anymore to keep you warm.

Instinctively you raised your mug to your lips, the bittersweet taste of the beer filling your mouth, the flat bubbles doing little to aid you with any sort of relief from your own mind. The alcohol you had once enjoyed now tasted emotyvwith no sense of purpose other then to try and numb your racing head and lift the weight of depression from your chest. You swallowed the beverage down, the butter aftertaste only souring your mood as you placed the cup down on the cement windowsill as you decided that the booze wouldn’t help with what had happened to you.

You felt as if a part of you had been ripped away, apart of your identity had been stolen from you and you only had yourself to blame.

Suppressed moans and sobs stuck in your dry throat making a sort of hiccuping sound that sounded so pathetic tou were surprised they had come from you. You had dealt with losses before, you had lost countless friends to the beasts who roamed the earth. Your sister had been there through it all, every loss you had ever endured your sister had been by your side. But now you were alone. You couldn’t be comforted by her anymore, you couldn’t hear her words of affirmation that everything would be ok.

The last person you had ever loved was gone. You were completel and utterly alone.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating with the others?”

You didn’t jump at the monotone voice that came from behind you. Instead you lazily tuned your head over your shoulder to lock eyes with Captain Levi. Had it been any other day you would have instantly stood up and saluted him, but your legs didn’t seem to want to work and your mind was past caring about any formalities. You could see the captain’s face half shadowed in the dimly lit corridors of the Survey Corps headquarters, his ebony hair falling neatly over his silver eyes in shaggy curtains. His full lips set in an unsmiling line and his thin brow flat and set in a bored expression as he stared at you, he held a glass in his hand that was half filled with a clear bronze liquid that you could only assume was whiskey.

“I’m not in a party mood.” you mumble, turning your gaze back out the window as you let your bent leg fall beside the other that hung out the window as you fold your arms over your chest.

He doesn’t say anything. Instead he arches a brow and moved closer to where you sit so he is stood beside you, his body leaning against the windowsill by your side. He doesn’t look at you but instead keeps his narrow eyes locked onto the night sky, he moves his hand with the glass of whiskey in it towards you. The golden liquid swirls in the glass for a second as its slightly pushed towards you.

Stealing a glance at the side of his face you gingerly take it, clasping it in two hands and raising it to your lips. The sweet taste of the liquor instantly burning your throat and nose as you swallowed it, your taste buds set on fire as the alcohol left a dry taste in your mouth.

“Thanks. I needed that.” you sigh, handing him back the glass which he takes but you notice his nose scrunch up slightly and he tosses the rest of the liquor out the window and sets the glass down beside your beer mug.

You had heard the captain was a bit of a germaphobe but you hadn’t thought he would go as far as to throw expensive whiskey out a window. But you didn’t care. Levi shifted his weight so he was leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his well built chest and his stare lingering out the window so only the side of his face was revealed to you.

“Why are you here?” you ask after a comfortable silence, he doesn’t look at you but you notice his monochrome irises slide to the corner of his eyes.

He’s silent for a while longer and you notice his eyes flit own to the mess hall where the doors are opened by someone down in the courtyard, the air filling with laughter for a second before the lord swung back closed and is fell silent again.

“I’m not in a party mood either.” he muttered as he sat himself down on the windowsill beside you.

You had never really spoken more then a few words to the captain in your entire career as a scout. It was bizarre for him to pay you any attention now but you had heard that he cared deeply for all his men and women, that if someone was having a hard time he was quite open to offer them a shoulder of support. Maybe now it was your turn to be comforted by the usually stoic captain, you didn’t want the comfort of anyone else but yourself and yet Levi seemed acceptable company for the moment. His presence was somewhat alluring, soothing almost, he seemed to share your distaste for socialisation at the moment and while everyone else was enjoying the evening he had ostracised himself from them and stood willingly by your side. He was merely a stranger, an aquantince at best, and yet he made you feel some kind of inner peace that only your sister had once provided.

It was quiet again but Levi let his gaze wander over your face and he could see the dullness in your eyes and the tear streaks on your face that glistened in the pale moonlight. He knew that a lot of his soldiers had been slaughtered in the previous battle and he could only assume that a close friend of yours had been one of them. He knew that his status through the ranks was intimidating to most and that very many people saw him as a shrewd and closed off superior, but he didn’t like it when another human was going through something as emotional as losing a loved one.

“Are you ok?” he asks breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” you say quietly as you bite down on your bottom lip in an attempt to hold back the tears that shimmer over your eyes.

“I don’t appreciate being lied to brat, you’re not ok.” he answers.

“It’s easier to say you’re fine then having to open up about it.”

Levi’s eyes visibly soften from their usual uncaring and cold fixture, his gunmetal irises seeming to softly glisntn with a hidden understating.

“I get it.” he replied “I’m not going to ask you who you lost or what it meant to you, but I can’t sit by and watch you blame yourself for whatever happened.”

“How did you know I was blaming myself?” you ask quietly and he scoffs is eyes accidentally meeting with yours but you notice something held within his stormy orbs. A glint of long forgotten sadness that he had since suppressed seemed to resurface in the depths of his eyes and for a second you think he’s going to cry.

But he doesn’t. He’s taught himself to hold the pain back until he was alone.

“We all blame ourselves when we lose people we care for. You’re no different from the rest of us.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” you ask and it’s the man you realise how insensitive that sounded as you sigh and rake a hand through your hair “I’m sorry that was…”

He cuts you off as he holds a hand up.

“I can see that you’re in a bad place right now brat, so I’ll let it slide.” he said and even though his voice was laced with a slight warning edge you couldn’t help but give him a small smile which he returned with a faint smirk.

You could already feel your walls begin to crumble just from a few minutes of his company. He may not have seemed the type for it but you could tell that you were not first person he had tried to console in his life, his words, while seemingly cold and seemingly insensitive were actually doing better at helping you then anything anyone else could say. You wanted to hear what else he had to say, maybe he could give you something that would help your grief.

“She was my baby sister.” you say, pressing your eyes closed and you hear the breath hitching in his lungs as he turns his gaze towards you, you don’t try to hold back the tears that slip out from our closed eyes, your long lashes growing heavy and damp from your crying “she um…she was my best friend. I only watched as she was…I couldn’t do anything.”

The memories flashed across your vision and you could remember the paralysis that had forced your body to remain planted to the spot while your sister was pulled from life.

Your body shivered against the windowsill as the images flashed through your mind and a small breeze slipped through the window sending a flurry of goosebumps to prickle over your skin. You weren’t wearing your uniform jacket so you only had your thin button up shirt to protect you from the fingers of the cold. You flinched when you felt something heavy fall around your shoulders, you instinctively reached up the grasp the sides of the jacket that Levi had placed over your shoulders. You gave him a small nod in thanks as he leaned against the wall still sat beside you, now only wearing his own button down shirt and ascot that ruffled in the night air.

“Thanks.” you mumble as you pull his jacket closer over your shoulders, for a small man heis jacket it quite spacious and fits you as well as your own, it smelt like him too. A soapy scent mixed with a hint of lemon which you assumed was from his cleaning products.

“Tch, your depressed. You don’t need a cold ontop of it.”

“So the stoic captain does have a heart.”

“Don’t think that highly of me.”

“It’s hard not to when you do stuff like this. My sister would do the same with a blanket if I was feeling down, or I would make her tea if she was sad.” a faint smile works it’s way over your lips at the memories of it but it’s short lived and you take a shaky inhale as more tears slip down your cheeks “I know I should be thankful that I’m still alive but a selfish part of me wishes that I had died instead of her. There are so many others who died today, so many others who lost more then me but all I can do is feel sorry for myself.”

Levi watches you momentarily as you turn your face away from his as if in shame. You bring your hand up to wipe away the evidence of your weakness but you were far from strength or showcasing it, every thought of your sisters smiling face was like a blunt knife being dragged through your heart. She was gone.

“You shouldn’t compare your struggles to someone else’s.” Levi eventually comments, his voice unusually soft “nobody here has not suffered, we’ve all lost something in the fight for freedom. It’s important that we don’t put our losses in comparasion to eachother. A struggle is a struggle, no matter the scale.”

“Does the pain ever go away?” you cry as you wipe more tears from your cheeks and he sighs.

“Not right away.” he answered before sighing as if he was holding the weight of the world on his shoulders, he usually wouldn’t feel obliged to share his own past with anyone but maybe it was the moment with the beautiful night sky or the silent understanding between the two of you that promised it was a safe space and before he could stop himself he had opened his mouth“It was my best friends who I lost.”

“What?” you ask as you let your eyes wander over his face, his half lidded eyes having darkened slightly as he revisited a part of his life that he had concealed from the rest of the world.

“My first expedition outside the walls I lost my two best friends. That’s all I care to say on it but I know what it’s like to lose family.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you Captain.”

“Levi.” he says “it’s just Levi.”

You nod.

“Why are you telling me this Levi?” you ask.

“Don’t go thinking your anything special brat, I blame the alcohol.” he said dryly even though he knew it was a lie.

He could hold his liquor very well and a few glasses of whiskey wouldn’t have made him open up to anyone. There was something about that definitely made him trust you more then anyone he had met before, it was most likely the position you were in that made him sympathetic towards you. He didn’t know you well enough to call you a friend and he wasn’t ready to open that much up to you, but he could see a person crying out for help when they needed it and you needed it.

“I just close my eyes and she’s there. I’m never going to hear her voice again or feel her lie in bed with me at night. I could tell her everything and I failed her.”

“You haven’t failed her.”

“Yes I did.”

“You only fail her when humanity loses.” the raven haired man beside you said as he looked out into the distance, the blacked out hills and valleys hidden in darkness but you could see the outline of Wall Rose looming in the background of it all where small orange dots flickered in the distance from where the torches lined the top of the wall “we keep fighting so their sacrifices aren’t in vein. When you stop fighting, that’s when you’ve failed her.”

“You know everyone says you don’t have any emotions, that you’re a hard ass…”

“I hope you’re going somewhere with this.” he deadpans and you laugh.

It’s not a strong laugh or one that was filled with happiness but it was something at the very least, and it made the atmosphere lighter even with the small vibration that left your lips and rang through the empty corridor.

“You’re not a bad guy Levi. Not everyone knows that and I think they should.”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me.”

“I could have guessed that.” you hum and you stifle a yawn but it slips out anyways.

It’s then you realised that your eyes had grown heavy and you were finding it harder to keep your focus on anything but the thought of your own bed. But you didn’t want to return to your bunker, your sisters things were still there a ghost of her was waiting for you in your private room where she had ice resided and you knew that you wouldn’t go back there, at least not tonight or for a while. You figured the corridor would suffice as a resting place, you didn’t want to disturb anyone else’s sleep by sharing a bed with them and you knew that there was a very high chance you would be waking up screaming from nightmares about your sister.

“Come on brat you need some sleep.” Levi mumered as he noticed your failed attempts to hide your yawns, your eyes half closed and your head leaning against the wall to keep your self upright, your body too exhausted to hold its own weight.

You weakly shook your head.

“No I can’t go back to that room. Our room.” you said with a sigh, your eyes now all the way closed as you let a few more shuffled and jumbled words tumble from your lips “I’ll sleep out here tonight. I don’t want to wake anyone else up with my…nightmares…”

Levi knew what was happening. He had suffered this too when his family had passed. He had avoided sleeping for weeks on end to the point his sleep schedule was beyond repair, he hadn’t had anyone to confide in and he hoped that maybe he could help you were nobody had helped him. So in one final act of kindness he reached out to grasp your wrist and pull you to your feet, you stumbled forward slightly but didn’t protest as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and began to guide you down the dimly lit corridor. Your body pressed into his side as you lazily shuffled down the corridor, with each heavy step you took Levi feared you would just collapse.

“I have a bed in my office that I never use, you can sleep there for tonight. I can keep an eye on you.” he instructed as he made it to his office and let the door swing open.

He helped guide you towards the door on the other side of the circular workspace to open it and help you into the bed, he pulled back the covers and let you slip into the cool sheets. You gazed up at Levi through half closed eyes, his pale skin and handsome features blurring as your eyelids slowly drifted shut. The mattress dipping under your weight as you nuzzled into the pillow, your strained mind finally allowing you a moments peace and for the first time that day your memories of the events from that day no longer playing behind your eyes as you snuggled into Levi’s bed. The cool and crisp bed sheets slowly warmed up and you quickly slipped to the edge of unconsciousness.

Levi watched you for a moment as you found comfort in his bed. He pulled the covers over your body and glanced down at your face that was still slightly reddened from the crying but he could see the peace of mind that sleeping in a different bed brought you. He was about to exit the bedroom and let you rest but he froze in the doorway when he heard your voice call to him from the bed.

“Thank you, Levi.”

His face didn’t shift from its bored expression but he simply nodded.

“Don’t mention it brat.”

…

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading


End file.
